Special to The Truth
The Ohio Unity Coalition along with community partners from the Douglas Center, APRI, Toledo NAACP, members of the PanHellenic Divine 9 sororities and fraternities, The Links, Assets Toledo, CBTU The Juice 107.3 and others joined together to mark and celebrate National Voter Registration Day with a drive-thru voter registration drive at the Fredrick Douglas Community Association on Tuesday, September 17.
From 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., the group hosted drive-thru voter registration effort in the parking lot and had music, free food and giveaways from some of the sponsors. DJ Impress (Moni Featchurs) was on hand to entertain those who stopped by.
This is widely regarded as the most important election in decades and this National Voter Registration Day the various groups want to ensure that everyone, particularly Black residents in Toledo are registered to vote and verify their voting status ahead of the November’s election.
“Registration is the first step to becoming a voter and verifying your voter registration is the last step before you cast a ballot. National Voter Registration Day provides an opportunity on a broad scale to get registered and to exercise the right to vote” according to Petee Talley, executive director of the Ohio Unity Coalition and Anita Madison, Toledo coordinator of Ohio Unity Coalition.
“We’re here to make sure that our community is vote ready for November 5 and more importantly to go early voting starting October 8,” said Madison. “We also want them to know the deadline to register to vote is October 5. So, this is an opportunity for people to verify their registration.”
The group is joining other community events throughout the state to promote voter registration. They are also hosting door-to-door registration efforts.
Noting that the state of Ohio has purged 150,000 voters from the rolls in the months of July and August and 6,000 in just Lucas County, Madison added: “We are encouraging people, where you vote or not, to just drive by and check our status and make sure your registration is up to date – don’t even need to get out of your car if you don’t want to.”